Work in Progress art fair to open first New York edition
The Midtown fair will turn four floors of The Blanc into temporary studios, where visitors can buy finished and unfinished works.
Market and Money
Work in Progress will open its first New York City edition in June, bringing 50 artists to Midtown Manhattan to create work on site in a format organizers describe as part art fair, part open studio and part public program.
The fair will run June 18-21 at The Blanc, a contemporary art space at 15 E. 40th St., where four of the building’s five floors will become temporary studios. Artists will make new work in front of visitors, with some projects inviting the public to participate.
The New York edition follows the fair’s February debut in Mexico City, where artists worked in a former factory and in studios across the city. Visitors to the New York fair will be able to purchase existing works and works in progress, according to organizers.
“People were hanging out for hours at the Mexico City fair, and we realized this sort of slow art was missing in an ecosystem like New York,” Chuman Zhang, executive director and co-founder of Work in Progress, said in a statement. “We hope that this way of working can point to a different approach to the art market overall.”
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Participating artists include Chris Baily, Richard Boehnke, Alison Cheng, Craftwork, Ifeoma Ebo, Adelle Yingxi Lin, Deborah Morris and Zahra Saleki.
Ventiko, who was previously featured by Urgent Matter for an NEA-funded addiction recovery workshop series that culminated in a mask exhibition and performance in Indianapolis, will create a photo studio centered on what organizers described as “a large-scale nude tableau” made with audience participation.
Organizers said projects will include clay sculptures that visitors can help break down in an aquarium, a group-made quilted map of Manhattan, a textile work shaped by visitors’ stories, and a performance in which audience members can pay to cut braids tied to floating balloons.
The program will also include a collaboration with queer collective Verbal Animal on “Play Me Techno,” described as an art rave with performance artists across multiple nights. Impulse Magazine will curate performances at The Blanc on June 19 and at Beverly’s on June 20.
The fair will close with a stand-up comedy performance featuring a live auction of unsold works in progress, according to organizers.
The fair follows other recent attempts to rethink the standard booth model. Art Warsaw’s roaming format places galleries in changing buildings rather than a fixed venue, and Enzo, a free Los Angeles fair for emerging New York galleries that charged neither exhibitors nor visitors.
Other fairs have also changed course under outside pressure, including Art Dubai and World Art Dubai, which adapted their schedules and formats amid conflict in the Middle East.
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